Chapter 120
Chapter 120
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 120
Chapter Title: Something Difficult
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📰 Post [Author: Blue Flame] [Streamer Faints After Seeing Today's Darkened Broth Donation...mp4] (Broadcast recording of Seol-a fainting) Just Legend 💬 Comments — Anonymous Whoa... she really collapses...??? — Reply For real, she looked dizzy, but she actually faints? — Reply Put yourself in her shoes as the one receiving that donation. — Reply If you reincarnate me as Jeon Jeonseol, I'll bow deeply and throw myself under a truck lol. — Reply Truck gen... — Reply Not truck gen, it's TS. — Reply Isn't that the same thing? — Reply It's being born perfectly as a woman from the start. How are those two the same? — Anonymous You're posting this as a funny video? A person collapsed. — Reply For real, no sense at all? — Reply But she survived, right? — Anonymous Jeon Jeonseol really faints all the time. Her nickname "Sickly Pitiful Delicate" isn't for nothing. — Reply What's that? — Reply Sickly, pitiful, delicate beauty. — Reply Shouldn't "delicate" be omitted? — Reply She hates it, so we added it to tease her. — Reply Truenos back-and-forth banter is the best lol. — Anonymous What the hell, I got scared. — Anonymous ??? That was scary as hell. She's not dead, right? — Reply Fortunately, she's safe. The collab stream with record-breaking viewers spread the news of Seol-a's fainting across the entire internet in an instant.
The pre-existing "feeling dizzy" meme.
It fit perfectly with the meme of reacting that way to donations that were hard to comprehend or utterly horrifying, and this GIF ended up spreading far and wide.
One more dark mark on her history!
And the Darkened Broth fans who saw her bury her head in Victory's shoulder only to collapse completely, with Victory catching her—they burned even blacker.
📰 Post [Author: Anonymous] [No matter how I think about it, isn't this a psychological battle?] (GIF of Seol-a fainting) Right after the Darkened Broth donation, she shoves her head into Victory's shoulder. Isn't she doing it to mess with them? It's like vicious psychological warfare, for real. — Anonymous If that looks like acting, you need to see a doctor. — Anonymous Do you think that's possible with acting??? Think logically. — Anonymous This guy's the one who sent the Darkened donation, right???? — Anonymous Hasn't even married her but got wife jealousy lol pathetic. — Anonymous Schizophrenia? Scary as fuck. — Reply What's the odds he evolves into a stalker? — Reply I'd say 99.999%. Condemnation poured into the comments under the unsettling post.
As people actively used the rarely invoked dislike function to show their resistance, the post was soon deleted.
📰 Post [Author: Anonymous] [Even just looking at the gal, you can see why Legend collapsed] (Screenshot of the just-deleted post) With these schizophrenic types acting like viewers, giving advice, obsessing, and freaking out, how scary must that be? Even I, a guy, find it terrifying and get chills. Seems like she's had stalking experience too. I can't do much, but I hope she overcomes it. — Anonymous Legend is a mass shooting survivor (link). — Reply Whoa, is this real??? — Reply If a stalker chased her with a gun, PTSD makes sense. — Anonymous Thank my parents for not making me a pretty girl lololol. — Reply But you're crying, sir... — Reply (Drip) — Anonymous Thought she was living well-fed and happy, but she's really struggling. — Reply She survived because she's an ugly guy lololol. — Reply (UnableToContinue) Seol-a received an outpouring of sympathy from the public.
At that moment, she herself was lost in deep thought.
She had said she would take responsibility for deceiving people and refund all donations.
Yet fewer than ten people actually requested refunds, totaling around 300,000 won.
The refund rate was under 1%.
The unidentified 30 million won donor who still hadn't requested a refund was the biggest factor, of course.
Anyway, most people didn't want refunds at all.
Seol-a grew a little fonder of her viewers.
As sad as it was, in this world, few things express sincerity as reliably as money.
Even Seol-a, who had never known poverty, knew people don't give money as a joke.
Especially that they hate giving it more when they dislike someone.
But that positive image took another hit from this incident.
Malignant viewers who wouldn't allow her near a man who wasn't even her boyfriend.
What did they expect? For her to stay locked in her room forever?
Even worse was treating her going outside as betrayal instead of supporting her.
Seol-a hadn't shut herself away by choice; she had fled inside because the outside world terrified her too much. Now, she wanted to reclaim the light out there.
If they truly liked her, they should cheer her on.
Wishing for her to fail, to stay cooped up, to never overcome her fear—that was wrong.
She found that person utterly repulsive.
She reverted to her old way of thinking.
Viewers are such an ambiguous existence.
They're not one body.
Not one mind.
Yet strangely interconnected, and yet ultimately nothing.
So hard to love or hate.
Endless joy when praised, plunged into abyss when criticized.
Streaming is no easy job.
Those who mock it as comfy work from your room should try it themselves.
They say dealing with people is the hardest thing in the world.
And dealing with so many at once? Definitely one of the toughest.
"Ah, yes. Well. Fortunately, I'm safe."
Seol-a turned on her stream again.
Forcing herself to start broadcasting despite hating it so much,
turning it on at her own preferred time even though she didn't need the money—
she didn't know what that meant, nor did she try to understand.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Having made such a declaration, Lee Jun figured he'd be summoned at all hours.
Fortunately, the spring season tournament was over, and there was a slight grace period until summer season began.
He hoped Seol-a would stabilize in the meantime.
But surprisingly, she didn't call him even once in a whole week.
Did she not trust him? He even wondered.
After such a grand statement, he couldn't just brush it off if she didn't call.
So Lee Jun asked her first.
By phone,
"Any worries lately? Even something small."
—"Then, want to come to my place?"
Somehow, he ended up invited to Seol-a's apartment.
It wasn't far from his team dorm, so he arrived quickly.
'Who would've thought she'd live here.'
Jeonseol Apartment, where Seol-a lived, was famous not just online but in real society too.
A symbol of wealth, home to successful celebrities and execs from major corporations.
Security staff were everywhere, and entry required strict procedures.
Walking to her unit, he passed several artworks—a pretty novel sight.
"Hi."
Seol-a was dressed extremely casually.
Like it was the peak of summer.
The place was so warm that Lee Jun, in spring clothes, felt a bit hot.
No makeup on her face, yet her beauty shone.
"You live alone in a place this big?"
"Dad said it'd be safe here."
Why not live with family?
Seol-a answered the question Lee Jun hadn't voiced.
"I don't get along with Mom. So it's just me."
"......"
It was a tough answer to respond to.
He briefly regretted prodding the quiet girl.
But having brought it up, he had to take responsibility.
They'd known each other five years, but with a three-year gap.
A long connection, yet they'd only recently started seeing each other face-to-face.
But true friends understand in a minute, right?
The length of acquaintance doesn't matter much.
To deny her looks played a role would be lying to himself.
Her pale face, pained expression, the vibe that made it hard to leave her be—it surely influenced him.
But that wasn't all.
Not approaching rationally either.
He just decided to help a friend he couldn't bear watching suffer.
This girl had no answers.
Then he'd make one for her.
"Is your worry about not getting along with your mom?"
"No, I gave up on that. Can't change it."
This was new info.
He felt like he understood a bit more about what made Seol-a who she was.
"Then what's bothering you now?"
"Streaming's pretty fun, but it claws at me just as much. I don't know what to do."
Now Lee Jun got it.
Why Seol-a pathologically recoiled from romantic feelings.
And how some viewers saw her as a romantic target through that faint connection.
No, they didn't even hope for reciprocation—or couldn't.
Quasi-romance?
Yeah, that name fit perfectly.